This Week In SEO – 5/11/07

Ever have one of those weeks? Do I really need to ask? This week had that feeling for me. The main project I was working on had a few delays and a few other small projects forced their way into the mix. I started looking forward to Friday as early as Tuesday. It got here though, didn’t it? Somehow I managed to collect the usual assortment of links for what I hope is your reading pleasure.

Social Media and Web 2.0

Last week all the Digg news was how the community staged a revolt against Kevin Rose’s decision for pulling the HD-DVD hex code post. Michael Gray is already seeing less action on Digg and wondered if the diggers are done digging. If you’re worried less activity makes it harder for you to get to the home page you can always use sex to help sell your content to the Digg crowd.

And have no fear about what will come of Kevin Rose should Digg spiral down. He’s starting his 3rd company as we speak and developing a new kind of communication tool to compete with IM.

It may not be as sexy as Digg, but that doesn’t mean Netscape can’t send traffic and links your way. Muhammed offers a comprehensive beginners guide to Netscape. While each social media site has it’s own quirks you want to get to know there are still some general do’s and don’ts that apply to all of them. I really like the attitude the Reddit’s conscious took this week in trying to motivate the community to do more than just post the same old content. Is the first charge just meant to separate Reddit from the immaturity of Digg or is this really all about enacting social change. Either way I applaud the post.

If I had to choose one word to describe web 2.0 it would be ‘interaction.’ Version 1.0 of the web put your content in front of people. Version 2.0 is about getting people to interact with your content. Pablo Palatnik has some tips to web 2.0-ify your site. Before you get too carried away you should understand that the web 2.0 crowd is much smaller than first thought. When you’re ready and want some examples of how to do it right check out the winners of SEOmoz’s 2007 web 2.0 awards.

Blogging

Brian Clark continued his series on using metaphor in your blog. Brian’s posts are the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Did I do that right Brian? That was a metaphor wasn’t it? Ok maybe it wasn’t great and only proved that I need more practice and a reread of Brian’s posts. While you’re there check out CopyBlogger’s new design.

Speaking of series, Darren Rowse had one going this week on creativity. I’ve already made arguments for copywriting and coding as the most important seo skill. Let’s add creativity to the list. Nothing sets you apart from your competition like being original, unique, creative.

Matt’s put together a nice list of resources to help in your blogging endeavors. SpotPlex was a new one to me and looks really cool. Advertise Space has a rundown of the 7 levels of revenue for your blog. You probably won’t be surprised to know that AdSense is at the lowest level. You’ll have to click through to see what’s at the top. Once you know what works hop on over to Paula’s list of blogger salaries. Hopefully it inspires you to make a future list. And whether you’re in it for the money or simply the joy you still want to keep readers on your site. Nate Whitehill has some tips that are rather easy to implement, on making our blogs sticky.

Link Building

Does Andy Hagans ever write a bad post? If so I haven’t seen it. This week Andy has some great advice on building links. It may be harder now, but Andy will help make it a little easier. The paid links debate continues. Lil Evans asked the experts for their take on the situation. Eric Ward asked how anyone could really measure link building effectiveness, while taking a look at the folly of linking metrics. Folly or not you still want those metrics showing more incoming links don’t you? Raj Dash has some alternate strategies for building links.

Eli’s real seo example isn’t just about link building, but the focus of the post involves getting links in Eli style and I didn’t have a lot of link building posts for the week so I’m including it here. I think this weekend I may spend a few hours in the Bluehat SEO archives. Eli’s posts are that good.

SEO Miscellany

I’ve grabbed a couple of Aaron Wall’s posts this week. First on some of the tools the search engines give us and second on Google’s supplemental index. And speaking of the supplemental index Andy Hagans shows why PageRank, Sitewide links, and meta tags are more useful than you may think. I told you Andy writes some good posts.

I’m sure you know tracking your web stats is an important part of optimizing your site. What you may not know is which analytics package is the best option for you. Stone Temple Consulting collected data from four sites and compared five analytics programs. If you’re looking for a new analytics application check this post first.

Analytics aren’t the only tools you likely use. David Naylor reviews Wordze, one of the newer players in the keyword research market, and liked what he saw. Loren Baker has some advice on why you might want to do your keyword research before choosing your domain. You might already have a process in place for how you seo a site. However if you don’t (or even if you do) you can benefit from the routine Rand uses at SEOmoz. Can’t hurt to follow the practices of one of the best.

Search Engine News

Google
Early this week Google updated the Analytics features and user interface. I’m still getting used to the new look, but I’ve been liking what I see so far and think the changes are for the better. If the update hasn’t hit your account yet you can still get a peak at what’s to come as most of the links below offer screen shots while offering opinions on the changes. And once the new interface does find your account be sure to take a look at what Avinash thinks you should do first with Analytics version 2.

It’s all about the advertising at Google. Late last week Google decided to share advertising revenue with the creators of the most popular YouTube videos, which should lead to an influx of of original videos. Google has begun beta testing ‘gadget ads’ and Andy Beal has a first look at the incorporation of print ads in AdWords. And Michael Jensen, with some interesting speculation, suggests it might not be long before you see Google ads at a movie theater near you.

Nick Carr offered his take on a possible Google plan to police the web by identifying sites that may potentially be harmful. Matt Cutts thought Nick’s post a little inaccurate and tried to set things straight

Stanford was granted a new patent on PageRank of all things. It’s been a few years since the filing, but the grant on the patent just went through this week. As always Bill is here to help the rest of us understand what it all means. And just yesterday Google held its annual press and shareholder meeting at the Googleplex. Andy Beal has four part coverage of the event. I’ll provide you with a link to part four, which holds links to the first three parts of the coverage.

Yahoo!
Yahoo said goodbye to a couple of properties. Last week it was Yahoo Photos shutting down and this week Yahoo Auctions was announced to be closing. Both moves make a lot of sense as Flickr and Yahoo Photos overlapped and Yahoo’s ties to ebay are probably why the U.S. and Canada won’t be seeing auctions at the search engine any more.

Yahoo Maps got an update. Greg Sterling has an overview of the changes and Bill discusses a new patent application that would allow advertisers to integrate inventory at specific locations with their ad at Yahoo Local Search.

MSN
Because of my early ‘This Week’ post last week I didn’t get to cover the talks between Microsoft and Yahoo. It started to feel like a non-story to me as the week progressed, but Steve Ballmer didn’t rule out a possible acquisition of Yahoo. I really haven’t given all that much thought to a potential merger between the two other than an initial gut reaction of not wanting it to happen.

Microsoft may not have made a deal with Yahoo, but they did acquire a stake in the job site Career Builder.

Hotmail has gone live in 36 languages with a new Ajax interface, John Batelle has the scoop on a new mashup to allow text links to become more interactive, and Bill Gates has decided to focus on search for his last year and a half with Microsoft. I’ll let Bill (Slawski, not Gates) close the week with some exploration of how Microsoft may use popularity data in search results.

It’s really Friday isn’t it? Sadly I still have a bit of work I need to get to tomorrow, but fortunately it shouldn’t take more than an hour or two. Other than that the weekend calls for some R&R and of course some reading and rereading of the above links and the Bluehat archive. Summer has suddenly crept up on Boulder and as predicted I do have the AC going. I think we’ve hit that time where it will stay on most of the next few months. Enjoy the weekend everyone and happy reading.

2 comments

“…Folly or not you still want those metrics showing more incoming links don’t you”?

Not always. My sites have less total inbounds today than they did
five years ago, but within that smaller universe of inbounds the high
trust IBLs remain, and my gut tells me that is why I rank 1st
for “link building strategies”, even though other sites have far more
raw IBLs than I do.

You can chalk that line up to me not writing a good sentence on a Friday afternoon and wanting badly for the weekend to start. I agree completely with you that more isn’t always better.

What I really meant to say and didn’t across was that we all want to see more of the high trust IBLs. My thought has always been more of the right kind of links are better, but that doesn’t mean more links is automatically better. Quality over quantity always.